Session 41 Evening of December 17th 216B When we left off the party was in the midst of entering the enclave of the Desmondu. (Huge bat figures of amazing brawn but poor magical and social skills.) While trekking in through the poison vapors that have protected the Desmondu from outside raiders, Viday's mask fails and he begins coughing and choking. The party has no other choice to but to press on and hope he makes it through in time. As it turns out the cave was only one or two bends away from the source of the poison vapors. A huge volcanic rift into which a stream was flowing. A metal cable dangles ominously over the pit and Viday indicates that it is in fact the bridge. The party decides to fly over the rift as the Desmondu trudge their way along the singing hot metal cord. Upon reaching the other side there is fresh air so the group doffs the awful masks and is accosted by a group of Desmondu guards in a small cleft in the rock. Beyond the cleft is the city of Desmondu but the guards do not seem willing to let the party pass. Viday quickly realizes the reason for the guards consternation but can not explain because of his coughing. After a few moments he finally gets Soapa to convey the message for him. Apparently the Desmondu are a very suspicious people and the sight of people flying around without bats is very frightening to them. If the group would land and climb the ceremonial ladder Viday will speak with the guards and convince them that the group means no harm. But he insists that the party refrain from obvious magic use while in the conclave. The party acquiesces and upon arriving at the guard outpost the rest of the group sees that Jaenelle had flitted ahead in fairy form and is already conversing with the Desmondu in their native tongue. The guard station consists of 4 warriors and several viscous looking guard bats replete with bad snapping jaws. Just outside the cleft on a series of posts are 4 huge bat mounts. Viday and Jaenelle quickly convince the guards of the party's good intentions and two guards are sent as escort the group to Baandar the Desmondu leader. On the other side of the cleft it opens into a huge cavern lit with phosphorus fungi spaced regularly along walls and pillars that might otherwise endanger fast moving fliers. The light phosphorescence of the molds is enough to reveal grand scale of the chamber. The chamber opens up almost a mile or two in all directions. At some places the ceiling is so far off that the phosphorescence blends together into forms like a surreal milky way. After ten minutes of walking the group passes a large underground lake with Desmondu fishermen working the shores. The guards do not answer any of the questions about whether the lake possesses sharks. The Desmondu city appears to mainly be built into the cavern roof. The guards keep the party fairly far away from the city due to the presence of large quantities of guano making the way difficult for ground walkers. The Desmondu appear to climb along the pillars and wires connect the pillars for easy movement above the floor. The city has two markets, one market is more hospitable to ground dwellers. Specializes in goods too heavy to haul up to the open air market far above, and the ground market caters to outsiders and trade goods. On the other hand the open air (aka hanging market) is mainly foodstuffs and sundry goods not interesting to outsiders. The group soon sees growing red haze of the rift that shelters the Elder's shrine. The rift bellows forth hot air and the entrance to the shrine is across the way about 20 feet. The guards easily leap down the 20 foot drop and Herunaro impresses the Desmondu by ferrying people up and down using his awesome jumping abilities (actually using fly for movement.) Alex makes a show of crawling down the wall. Everyone reaches the temple and meets Baandar an elderly Desmondu/elf hybrid going on 70 (extremely venerable by Desmondu standards) Party talks for a while about the history of Charden-Dar. Baandar relates the story of Vespar the founder of the Desmondu. Vespar along with his people were slaves forced to work on components for a huge machine. Generations had past while doing this and many of his people had died in the forges for the conditions were very poor for the slaves. One day while looking for a new place to mine Vespar encountered Sheila, a wounded Great-Bat. Whenever he was sent to work near that section of tunnels he would drop by and feed her of his blood, since that was all he had to offer her. After she recovered to health she showed Vespar a passage his people could use to escape and explained that using magic they could sealed off the way behind them. The escape worked, and many people were able to flee before the alarm went off and guards began to arrive. The way was closed before all the slaves could escape since they couldn't risk any guards making it through. Vespar and Sheila then worked a great shaping to give their people powers of survival and the pair have been revered ever since. The temple contained a great statue of Vespar now revered as a god. The rest of the conversations dwell on how the people live, the Desmondu's reluctance to use magic. (Apparently many of the magic inclined children became twisted and turned into monsters or beholders.) The party eventually decides to spend the night in the temple with Baandar. During the night the party stumble upon a group of assassins killing Baandar. The group was lead by a trickster disguised as Korvath. The party catches the assassins but are not able to save Baandar. Two of the assassins are captured after Herunaro turns them into Box turtles. Swiftwind dies while trying to take down a female berserker that appears to be at least half giant. (but horned like a unicorn) December 18-20th 216B The party spend several days down identifying items from the assassins and bringing people back to life. A bit of time is put into questioning people returning from the afterlife. Questioning the remaining assassins reveal that the assassins were working with the Salamanders to make sure that the Desmondu priest would not figure out the nefarious plot the salamanders had been working on. The Salamanders had been rerouting the lava flows in the surrounding area to increase the pressure underneath the Desmondu cavern. This pressure resulted in small localized quakes and if enough pressure built up the Desmondu cavern would erupt killing everyone inside. Unfortunately for Baandar he had been growing suspicious of the increasing quake frequency and had innocently asked the Salamanders if they knew anything about the cause of the problems. Afraid that he would find out too much the Salamanders plotted to have him killed using outsiders who owed them favors. (for a planar binding or some such thing) SESSION END December 21st 216B NEXT TIME : Into the Flaming Citadel... DEATHS ------ Swiftwind EXPERIENCE TOTALS (Session 41) ----------------- Korvath Alex Herunaro Swiftwind Jaenelle Murgen 86555 85856 86089 73933 86745 42763